It's aQuestion ofFaith: Discourses of Fundamentalism ... - JAC Online

Discoursesof Fundementalism 339
woman not a woman who lived thousands of years ago." This emphasis on
distinguishing between past/present isalsoreflected in the phrases "Old Testament
stand point, ""twentieth century logicand understanding," and "Back in this time."
Arguing that the tale can only be understood within the context it waswritten, Luke
callsany other reading naive.
Luke's resistance to arevisionist reading of this biblical story isunderstandable
given how he views the authority of biblical text asthe literal and unmediated word
of God, an authority of meaning that must remain stable and unified across time to
ensure that all readers can accessthe same moral creeds. Rather than retrieving this
moral from the story ofLot, Luke argues,the poem (and,by implication, the narrator)
"takes a standpoint that isvery sympathetic to Lot's wife." It isthis standpoint-a
situated reading from a "modern" perspective-that Luke cannot accept. Using
phrases that reflectLuke's attempt to convey an "objective" perspective-"the fact still
remains" and "Obviously"-Luke suggests that those who "impose" twentieth
century logicarenaive. His statement "You cannot justify looking back and therefore
breaking God's command by nostalgia" refersnot only to this specificpoem but also
to Luke's overall philosophy ofhow biblicaltexts canbe read. Readingtextsthrough
a revisionist lens is dangerous, Luke suggests, becausesuch readings are used to
"justify" actions that conflict with God's will. If the Bible's textual authority is
destabilized, God's authority isequally open to interpretation-and revision.
Given Luke's perspectiveon the authority ofmeaning within biblicaltext, it's not
surprising that he does not mention the other two articles that were assignedon this
day. What I first attributed to possible laziness on his part (perhaps he hadn't read
them or just didn't feel like taking the time to write about them) could also be
attributed to the fact that, for him, the Bible is the sole source of authority for
interpreting allother texts. Incorporating ideasfrom the articlesto interpret the poem
would have led him to the same downfall asthe narrator of the poem, atwentieth
century "stand point" that might have justified readings contradictory to God's
intentions. Luke might have used biblical authority to critique the "secular" essays,
but he chose instead to focus on the objectionable reading that the narrator offers.
Although Luke 0 bviously does take an interpretive stance to the poem, he views
himself ascorrecting and informing the narrator's naive and nostalgic perspective
rather than adopting an interpretive position himself As Boone suggests,fundamentalists
do not view texts asoffering multiple readings-there are correct or incorrect
readings of atext and those with moral authority have the ability to discern which
reading istrue (20).
Luke's resistance to the author's revisionist reading might be subtly directed to
me aswell. AsKincheloe notes, students with fundamentalist assumptions often view
teachers asthe enemy, secularhumanists who attempt to destroy faith by undermining
religious authority. Kincheloe saysthat ministers and parents often warn students to
remain ever vigilant in fending off such attacks to their religious values (50).Luke's
concluding statement, "You can not justify looking back," could be interpreted asa
reminder to himself or asawarning to me-the one who has selected the poem to
begin with-that he will not succumb to what he views asthe heretical reading of a